


it breaks your heart

by purplehedgehogskies



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Post-Breakup Everlark, Rated E for future sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:05:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplehedgehogskies/pseuds/purplehedgehogskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Katniss saw Peeta Mellark again after leaving him heartbroken two years ago, she thought it wouldn't hurt.<br/>She was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all my promises to you

The first time she saw Peeta Mellark again, he didn’t see her.

It was spring, but the slush that lined the sidewalks and the chill that still seeped into Katniss’s apartment at night seemed to think it wasn’t quite time yet. Wet footprints covered the floor and all of the people she saw on the subway terminal were still bundled up in their winter coats.

Emerging from the underside of Central Park West, Katniss blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight. Compared to the stale metallic air in the subway, the cold that filled her lungs felt fresh and green and alive. She stopped at the top of the ramp that led out of the station, pulling her phone from the highest pocket of her cargo pants.

Finnick had texted her four times. One was an image, a selfie of him on the museum steps. Another was about twenty emojis of dolphins and whales, probably indicating his excitement to see the hall of ocean life with its giant whale hanging from the ceiling. He was graduating this year and he hadn’t been to the museum yet, so Katniss was sponsoring this trip in case he never got to go again.

But hopefully, her best friend would stay in the city. Katniss was only a second-year student at NYU, and had at least a year to go if she really worked hard. She hoped he would stay because he was the closest thing she had to family in New York. She hoped he would stay because she would miss him too much if he went away.

She was striding towards the steps to meet Finnick, who had stood up and started waving energetically as soon as he’d spotted her, when a shock of blond curls caught her eye and turned her head. For a long time, every stocky blond guy she saw on the streets had flip-flopped her heart, because she’d always looked at them and thought _Peeta_. Her stomach would churn and she would remember all kinds of things she’d been trying to forget, and her mind would scramble for something to say—but it was never him.

It had been two years now, and it had stopped hurting.

She still turned to look. She told herself it was because he was walking a dog, and Katniss had a love for every dog she saw. This one was a collie, and it was absolutely beautiful—she might’ve even approached the owner if she wasn’t so goddamn terrified of native New Yorkers, if she had been on that side of the street, and if he hadn’t looked so much like….

Katniss did a double take. The man walking the dog on the other side of the street did not _look like_ Peeta. He _was_ Peeta.

She froze in the middle of the sidewalk and stared. Someone bumped into her, and she didn’t apologize. They didn’t apologize either.

She wondered how long he’d had the dog. He had to have moved—their old apartment had not allowed pets that didn’t live behind glass. The peacoat he was wearing looked new, with shiny buttons that were all there and a design that fit the shape of his torso perfectly.

He was wearing his hair the same way now as he had when she’d seen him last, a somewhat boyish mop of curls that covered his hears and fell into his eyes if he went too long without a trim. But unlike when she’d seen him last, he looked content. Happy, even.

She watched him walk by until she couldn’t quite make him out anymore. At this point, Finnick had seen what was happening and had descended the steps to join her—he was talking, but she didn’t really know what he was saying.

“What?” she asked, turning to him. He had a hand on her shoulder, his eyes filled with concern.

“Are you okay?”

She looked at the school bus that was rolling to a stop in front of the museum, assessing whether or not she was okay. It was very much like the moment that followed a hard fall, where she would pause before trying to get up, testing her arms and legs and feeling for injuries.

Katniss decided that, though reeling after seeing him for the first time in years, she was okay. Though something in her was still screaming—screaming at her for leaving him, screaming at her for letting him walk away—she was fine.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m okay.”

Finnick sighed and dropped his hand to pat her on the back. “Okay, but you have some explaining to do, little miss.”

She sighed and let him take her hand, leading her up the steep stone steps and into a building full of the past—a past distant enough that it didn’t still sting.

 ****

She saw him again in June, just three months later.

She was spending the week with her family back in her hometown of Panem, and as long as she steered clear of Mellark territory, Katniss knew she would enjoy every moment of it. She got coffee from the single Starbucks, avoiding the two Mellark bakeries. She took routes that wouldn’t take her past their house, went to the grocery store when she knew their whole family would be at work, and avoided the arts and crafts store altogether just in case Peeta had gotten back into painting.

It was silly, but it had worked so far. She had avoided confrontation for almost two and a half years. But that Tuesday night, Katniss abandoned her methods entirely.

The living room basked in the blue glow of the television, and Katniss had turned the sound way down as soon as Prim had begun to doze halfway through the third Harry Potter film. Now, as Prim slept, she threaded her sisters fine golden hair through her fingers and tried not to drift off herself.

She turned when she heard the locks on the front door tumble and click. She listened to the sounds of her mother unloading a hard day’s work, depositing her bag and shoes and woes in a haphazard pile in front of the coat closet, shuffling into the living room and standing in the light of the TV as she took in the image of her daughters sprawled out on the couch.

“Katniss,” she murmured, and Katniss thought that maybe she hadn’t left everything in the pile by the door. Tonight, she kept carrying her burden into the living room, into the kitchen where she switched on the light and poured herself a glass of iced tea. She stood with the plastic tumbler in her hand, hovering in the doorway, before addressing Katniss again, “Come here. I need to tell you something.”

Katniss gently untangled herself from Prim’s gangly limbs, eased her body down to the couch cushions, and placed a pillow under her head.

As she joined her mother in the kitchen, Katniss spared a glance at the stove clock. It read 12:03, which meant her mother had been late to come home from work. Katniss hadn’t thought to pay attention to the time, and now she worried that she should have.

“Sit, sit, have a drink,” said Mom, ever the caretaker now that Katniss didn’t need to be taken care of anymore. She took a deep, shaky breath, and for the first time Katniss noticed the puffiness of her eyes and the barely-dry tearstains on her cheeks. “I have to tell you something.”

Katniss sat down heavily. She thought she knew where this was heading, but she didn’t want to be right. She was so terribly afraid of being right.

“Bram…Mr. Mellark…he passed away just about an hour ago,” she said, and Katniss closed her eyes, absorbing what her mother had told her. A tear slid down her cheek and fell onto the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry, Katniss.”

Abraham Mellark had been a light that never flickered, bright and blinding. He was imposing, but still so wonderfully gentle. He had always been so supportive of her and Peeta, had always been so kind and loving towards Katniss. She thought of him like a second father, and he would have been her second father if she hadn’t left Peeta.

If she hadn’t left Peeta, he would have seen his youngest son get married. Now, he never would.

Katniss’s mother rose from her seat, maneuvering around the table and kneeling beside her daughter’s chair. She held her hands tightly and brushed back her hair as she began to sob, but through her own blurred vision Katniss could see tears leaving new tracks on her mother’s face.

“Was Peeta there?” Katniss asked. She had a sudden image of Peeta, lying awake in bed with moonlight splashed across his face, just after his father’s diagnosis. She remembered what he’d been afraid of, what had kept him awake that night and for at least two more. “I know…I remember that he wanted to be there.”

“Yes, yes it was just him,” said Mrs. Everdeen. “The poor boy was alone. But yes, he was there.”

“Good,” said Katniss, but the word was lost in her sobs, in her grief, in her guilt. And, in a moment of raw and painful honesty, she said, “I wish I had been there too.”

 ****

Everyone in town who had met Mr. Mellark loved him. It was easy to melt into the crowd of mourners that appeared at the funeral home Friday afternoon for the viewing and subsequent service. Katniss stood apart from her mother and sister, preferring to become part of a sea of strangers.

She was practically a stranger now, if she really thought about it. She didn’t know a thing about Peeta’s current life, or his brother’s lives, and she didn’t particularly want to know what his mother was up to lately. But here she was, sniffling over a tiny cupcake she’d picked up from the refreshments table.

It reminded her of Peeta’s high school graduation party, when Mr. Mellark had handed her a cupcake with a delicate fondant cap and tassel perched atop the frosting. And then, he had handed her an envelope with fifty dollars inside. When she protested at the amount, he said, “Well, Katniss, it’s exactly what I gave Peeta. And since I’m throwing this party, I get to decide that it’s your graduation party, too, even if no one else knows but you and me.”

In that moment, she’d felt like family. How could she pretend to be a stranger when Mr. Mellark had always thought of her like family?

Katniss ate the cupcake and tossed the wrapper in the trash, wiping away the wayward tears that had started to leak out of her eyes. Next to the refreshments table there was a picture collage set up on an easel, featuring photos of Abraham and his friends and family. There was a wedding photo, in which Mrs. Mellark looked happier than Katniss had ever seen her. There was a photo of Mr. Mellark teaching one of the boys—it looked like his middle son, Cap, but in some older pictures, he and Peeta were indistinguishable from one another. And then, almost hidden behind a family trip to Disney World, there was a photo Peeta had taken at his oldest brother’s wedding.

It was during the father-daughter dance. Since Katniss didn’t have a father and Mr. Mellark didn’t have a daughter, he had taken her hand and led her onto the dance floor.

Katniss lifted her hand, her fingertips lightly touching the picture. She hadn’t even stepped into the viewing room yet, and she was already a mess of snot and tears. She knew no one was judging her—it was a funeral, after all—but she felt disgraceful anyway. She had not seen or spoken to Mr. Mellark in a very long time; she had left him behind the day she packed up her things and moved out of that tiny apartment. She was the reason he wouldn’t see Peeta get married, and she was the reason Peeta had been alone when his father had died.

Katniss drew back from the photo collage and reached for a napkin to wipe her face, but another hand beat her to the pile. Cap Mellark picked up the scratchy black napkin and placed it in Katniss’s hand, his smile a weak, sad thing.

“Peeta helped him make it. Dad insisted on that photo being there,” said Cap, sinking his hands back into the pockets of his suit. “I think he knew you would come, that you would want to be here.”

Katniss turned her head, and through the viewing room’s open doors, she could see Peeta. He stood beside the casket with his mother and Walden, accepting condolences. He still looked the same as he had when she’d seen him in March, except that now, his shoulders sagged with burden and grief.

Cap followed her gaze, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry, Cap. For your loss,” she said, turning back to the Mellark at hand. “Could you pass my condolences on to the rest of your family?”

Cap nodded, and before she could say thank you, he had pulled her into a hug. Katniss felt a surprised squeak fall from her lips, but in the next second she relaxed, letting herself be folded into his embrace. He hugged so much like his father, and so much like Peeta, but it wasn’t the kind of reminder that hurt. It was actually quite comforting.

When Cap pulled away, he tugged gently on a strand of her hair. “You cut it.”

“Yeah. A little while ago. I felt like a change,” she said.

“You look good,” he said. Cap smiled, and this time, it was bright. Like it was supposed to be. “I’ve missed you, kid.”

Admitting that she missed him, too, was so perilously close to admitting that she missed someone else, so she just smiled, said goodbye, and went to wait for her mother and sister in the car.

 ****

Over the course of the next year, she didn’t see Peeta. But she began to see his name everywhere.

She had known about the second Mellark’s location in town since they’d opened it, the same year Mr. Mellark was diagnosed and the same year Peeta and Katniss broke up. It had been no big deal then, just a way to expand their reach—Abraham had never wanted to turn it into a franchise.

His wife apparently did. And she had been right to take the plunge—within months, Mellark’s bakeries and delis were popping up all around New York and surrounding states. The popularity was beginning to rival Panera, and their cheese buns were arguably better than Red Lobster’s famous biscuits.

Katniss came back from Christmas break to find that the mystery-shop they’d been preparing to open on campus ended up being Mellark’s—which led to an awkward conversation anytime a classmate or friend wanted to meet up there, and Katniss shot it down right away. She didn’t know why, as it was just a tiny branch and she was highly unlikely to see Peeta there, but something about the idea of eating there made Katniss cringe.

“Maybe it’s not about Peeta,” she vented to Finnick over the phone one night. Through her cracked-open bedroom door she could hear the sounds of a dreadful battle scene as Johanna sat hunched over a video game controller, yelling into a headset. “Maybe it’s about his dad. I mean, I always knew he didn’t want to franchise. It’s not great for the quality of the food, you know?”

“Yeah, likely story. I just went to the Mellark’s down my street for lunch, and it was fabulous,” said Finn. “My _date_ thought it was very good, as well.”

“We already discussed your lunch date in detail. Come on,” she said. “Okay, so it’s not about the food? Then it must be his mother.”

“The conniving bitch?”

“She’s only _usually_ a conniving bitch,” said Katniss. “It’s not all the time, she can be…okay sometimes. I mean, I don’t think it was right to franchise the business against Bram’s wishes.”

“Right. But I still think it’s about Peeta,” Finnick said. “I still think you’re afraid of seeing him and talking to him. But it’s been what, three years? I’m sure there’s no hard feelings left.”

Katniss sighed. Finnick had not been there. He had not seen the state Peeta was in when they ended things—it was so horrible of her to leave him like that. She remembered what she’d said, and how it hit him like a punch to the gut, and how he promised things would be okay if she just _stayed_. But she hadn’t believed him. She’d packed up her things and moved out, leaving the ring on the nightstand. He called every day for weeks, and she never answered; finally, he stopped calling.

That warranted hard feelings, even after so much time had passed.

Katniss didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She asked again about his date with his coworker, another intern at the science magazine, and Finnick began to gush about their conversation that never seemed to stall and how absolutely beautiful she’d looked in her cardigan and jeans.

She was honestly so glad that he was happy that she almost forgot how sad she was.


	2. the dreams you left behind

The first time he saw Katniss Everdeen again, it hadn’t even been a year since she’d left. She was on the other side of the subway terminal that he stood on, waiting. She didn’t see him.

Peeta felt like he’d been hit by a train.

She was wearing her hair in a ponytail, a baggy NYU hoodie and the pair of leggings with the hole in the knee that she’d worn the day they piled all their things into his crappy car and drove to New York City. He remembered her singing along to the radio, but he couldn’t remember a single song that had played—he hadn’t really been paying attention to the lyrics, but to her voice and her smile and the way she danced in her seat.

So she’d gotten into NYU. That was good. That was great. It was what she’d always wanted.

He wondered if she’d met someone, and the smile directed at the screen of her phone was for him. Peeta wondered if she even thought about him anymore.

Peeta felt the rush of stale subway air against his face that signaled the arrival of his train, but his feet were frozen to the platform and his eyes frozen on Katniss’s small figure just a few feet away.

He wanted to say hello, to tell her he had picked up a paintbrush again, though it had yielded nothing. He wanted to tell her how his father was doing, that his sister-in-law was expecting, that maybe his life was not back on track yet but he was going to try.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that she really wouldn’t want to know. After all, she had been the one who left, who had not picked up his calls, who had avoided seeing him again.

He might have still loved her, but she was gone. She was stepping onto a train and he was still standing there, having missed out on every chance.

 ****

Peeta had finally moved out of his brother’s place, and had just bought new dishes and cutlery when he saw her again.

After Katniss left, he had stayed in their apartment for a short time, but eventually his place of residence became Walden’s couch. He was, after all, a starving artist who hadn’t painted in a year, and his brother was sympathetic.

He worked at a drug store nearby to save up money to move out, and now that he finally had Peeta was in a rather celebratory mood. With his shopping bags dangling from one hand, Peeta pushed open the door of the nearest Starbucks He greeted the barista at the counter with a smile.

He had ordered his favorite tea and watched the barista write _Peter_ on his cup, and was standing away from the counter waiting for his order when he noticed the girl studying at a table in the corner. Without her long locks in their trademark braid, he almost didn’t recognize Katniss—her hair was much shorter than it had ever been, and she had pinned it away from her face with a shiny gold clip.

It would be her second year at NYU now, he thought, but not much longer—spring finals were probably just around the corner. Her birthday was in a week—she’d be twenty-one. He remembered their plan for when she turned twenty-one: instead of going to the bar, they’d buy a bottle of champagne and sip it out of plastic glasses from the dollar store. Peeta wondered what her plan was now.

“Mint Majesty tea for Peter,” called the barista, and Peeta stepped up to retrieve his order, then poured cream into it but no sugar. He was slipping out the door when a gangly, copper-haired young man barreled through, his enthusiasm for life radiating from him and jostling the shopping bags on Peeta’s arm.

“Sorry, sorry,” said the man as he passed, tossing a smile over his shoulder. Peeta walked out onto the sidewalk and began his trek home. Through the coffee shop window, he watched the guy stride over to Katniss’s table in the corner and slide into the seat across from her, saying something that was muted by the glass. She was laughing.

Despite the twinge of jealousy and the rush of yearning that came over him, watching her laugh—her nose wrinkling, eyes sparkling, golden barrette glinting—made his heart feel weightless.

Peeta had long since found that he was okay living without her. It wasn’t the life he’d planned for, but he had figured out how to navigate until he could make a new plan. It had taken time, but he had pushed himself to his feet. He’d shaken the dust off his shoulders and started his life without her.

He had healed. He had moved on with his life.

But his pulse still jumped at the sight of her, and his mouth still twitched into a smile when he saw her laugh.

Peeta did not gaze at her through the window of the Starbucks for very long, turning away and walking briskly back to his apartment. But the memory stayed with him, and he replayed it in his mind for days.

****

The moments after Peeta’s father died felt like splicing film. Scenes collided with each other—he was letting go of a cold, limp hand. He was talking to a nurse. He was talking to Carol Everdeen. He was walking down the white-lit hospital hallway with his phone pressed to his ear, as his mother was ending the call.

He was standing in the corner of a deserted waiting room, unsure where the ache he felt was coming from.

“Peeta,” a soft voice, a hand on his arm. Mrs. Everdeen, having retrieved her things from the locker room. She had asked if he wanted her to take him home. Dimly, Peeta remembered agreeing.

“Thank you,” he said. She kept her hand on his arm, a gentle, comforting pressure.

“Would you like to stay longer?”

Peeta shook his head. He followed her down the hall to the door she used to get in and out of the building, which was different than the entranced he’d used—it was not the clicking revolving door bathed in harsh light, but instead an unmarked key-card access door that opened directly onto the employee parking lot.

In the car, Peeta fiddled with the air conditioning vents that blew cold into his face. He could tell Mrs. Everdeen was watching him, glancing over between pools of streetlamp-light and headlight beams when she thought he wouldn’t see.

“Do you think you’ll be able to reach Katniss tonight?” he asked her, his voice cutting through the silence in the car. “He would’ve wanted her to know before the newspapers. Before Facebook.”

“She’s home for the next few days,” said Mrs. Everdeen. “Before she goes back for summer classes.”

“Oh. Good,” he said. “Will you tell her for me?”

“Of course, dear,” she said.  

When her husband had died when Peeta and Katniss were in middle school, Mrs. Everdeen’s grief had worn a very different face—shattered and frail and despondent. She seemed to have grown stronger with time. He was glad she was there when his father had died, and not Peeta’s own mother, who had never been soft or forgiving. He was glad she would be the person to be there for Katniss when she heard the news.

“Thank you,” Peeta said again, as they pulled up in front of his parents’ house.

“You’re very welcome, Peeta. I’m sorry for your loss,” she said softly. “He was wonderful, your father, and well loved. If there’s anything more I can do for you or your family, just call me, okay?”

“Thank you.” This time, he was crying. Mrs. Everdeen handed him a small package of tissues, but instead of using them Peeta just held them tightly in his fist, crinkling the plastic wrapping. She looked like she wanted to do something more, but couldn’t think of anything else to offer.

Peeta eventually managed to wipe his face of tears and snot, to extricate himself from the car of his ex-girlfriend’s mother, and to stumble up to the front door. The key slipped from his shaking fingers a few times, and distantly Peeta was aware that Mrs. Everdeen still idled at the curb, waiting to leave until he was safely inside.

When he finally closed the door behind him, he heard her drive away. The entryway was dark and quiet, but he could hear his mother’s voice in the home office at the back of the house. He walked towards the sound, finding her making a phone call, documents spread across her desk in front of her. Behind her, his father’s desk stood uncluttered and abandoned.  

“You should get some sleep,” he said. She ignored him and finished her phone call.

“I’m busy. There’s a lot of work to do,” she said. But she had been over all the documents already, had figured out most of the funeral arrangements, had already read the will. What she hadn’t done for perhaps a week, since Dad had really started to decline, was set foot in her bedroom. When she did sleep, it was in short bursts—naps on the couch, at her desk, in the offices of the bakeries that she had refused to close.

Peeta’s parents were colleagues. Sometimes it seemed like that was all they were. But he was determined to see that it was, indeed, more. He was ever-hopeful that their marriage, though complicated, was still very much alive.

He saw it now, the elephant in the room. She was trying very hard to ignore it, avoiding the shared bedroom in favor of the office, staring at her reflection in the darkened screen of her laptop instead of looking at her son, who looked like his father. There was less grief in losing a business partner than in losing a husband, so she was behaving like that was all it was.

Peeta’s mother was not warm and soft like other mothers. She was proud and strict and businesslike. She was quick to criticize, quick to capitalize, quick to ostracize. But she still had love in her—you just had to look a little harder for it.

 ****

After catching a small glimpse of Katniss at his father’s funeral, Peeta didn’t see her again for another year and half.

He was walking Walden’s collie along the west edge of Central Park. The trees were just beginning to change, and Peeta was bordered by the silver cityscape to one side and the brilliant oranges on the other. He had always taken this route when walking his brother’s dog, and had always admired the scenery. But now that he was painting again, there was a whole new level to his appreciation. He was already thinking about the colors and brushstrokes to use.

Pancakes was an old dog, having been adopted three years before when she was twelve. Now, she was pushing fifteen, and though she looked amazing, Peeta could tell the years were wearing her down. They could not take very long walks anymore.

At the next crosswalk, Peeta guided her across the street and they began to head back towards the new apartment Walden had bought for his family when the Mellark’s chain had started to become highly profitable. Peeta’s humble townhouse had cost less, because it wasn’t so close to the park and there was a lot of work to be done on it, but it was still quite expensive—but that was Manhattan. Everything was expensive.

As he started to pass the perilously steep steps that led up to the Museum of Natural History, a bus pulled up at the curb. The doors creaked open and Peeta paused, knowing a stream of children would soon be making their way onto the sidewalk and blocking his path. So he waited.

The students that piled out of the bus were about middle school age, all wearing green polo shirts embroidered with matching crests. Peeta held tightly to Pancakes’ leash so that she wouldn’t push her way into the crowd, sniffing hands and demanding attention, a habit that must have been left over from her years as an energetic puppy.

A teacher hopped down from the bus, an older woman with short, wiry hair. She smiled brightly and began shouting out requests for the children to get in line and start heading up the steps. Following closely behind her, a younger teacher held a clipboard, which she waved at one of the students as he made a snarky comment.

"Did anyone ask you, Jeremy?” she said with a laugh.

Peeta had been looking at Pancakes, who was gazing up at him expectantly, thinking perhaps he might be inclined to let her go. But at the sound of her voice, he turned—in his peripheral vision, the woman in the dark braid and pencil skirt had just seemed like another teacher with her hands full.

“Ms. Everdeen, do you have the medical bag? I seem to have forgotten it,” said the older teacher, peering over the heads of the students.

Katniss held up a bright red bag emblazoned with a white cross. “I’ve got it.”

“Fantastic! Okay, who’s ready for an adventure?”

The children responded with varied levels of enthusiasm. Katniss looked like she was going to join in and voice her own excitement, but before she said anything the smile seemed to drop from her face. Instead, her jaw gaped open in shock, her eyes meeting Peeta’s.

The group was moving, but Katniss dawdled behind, stopping in front of him. She kept an eye on the students at the back of the line, decided her coworker had it under control, and turned to him.

“She’s a beautiful dog,” said Katniss. Peeta scratched between the dog’s ears and smiled, but avoided Katniss’s eyes.

“Her name is Pancakes. She’s Walden and Myra’s,” he said. “I take her out sometimes.”

“I’ve seen you with her before. I thought she was yours.”

“Nope. Though I’ve thought about it lately—my new place has plenty of room for a dog, and a little backyard,” he said with a shrug. “It would be less lonely, for sure.”

Katniss looked like she had something to say, but she didn’t know how to say it.

Instead, she said, “My roommate is allergic to dogs. And she has this terror of a cat, worse than Buttercup was, honestly. The thing is possessed and would maul a puppy if it had the chance.”

 "Yikes.”

“Yeah. I should go. Um…yeah.”

“Wait,” he said. “My mother and I have a meeting with some investors at the Capitol hotel this evening.”

Katniss paused on her way to the museum steps, looking at him curiously.

"Do you know where that is?” he asked. She nodded. “Well, they have a nice bar. I usually go there after meetings like this.”

She blinked. “Okay.”

Peeta remembered the first time he’d asked her out, and how he hadn’t really asked her out at all. It was after he’d confessed his crush to her, when they’d started to grow apart as friends because of the awkwardness that followed. Peeta couldn’t take it anymore, so he’d walked up to her and said he was going to Sae’s diner by himself after school, but he would buy a milkshake for anyone who happened to join him.

She had showed up that day, and they’d stayed at Sae’s until closing. He walked her home, and she kissed him goodnight.

As Katniss bounded up to the museum entrance, hurrying to catch up with her group, Peeta hoped that maybe she would show up this time, too.


	3. toast what could have been

Katniss was still wearing the pencil skirt and flats she’d worn to work that day, and next to the designer suits and pumps rushing in and out of the Capitol hotel, she felt bland and insignificant. She stood in the blinding white lobby, beneath an enormous chandelier that was supposed to look modern and sophisticated but actually reminded Katniss of the bubbles she and Prim blew in their backyard on sunny summer days.

            She wasn’t sure why she had come. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t left yet.

            It didn’t make sense to dig up the past. It didn’t make sense to meet him here after almost four years of avoidance, of guilt, of dating other people, of being happy without him. She had gone to NYU and graduated in three years, had gotten a job at a private school that she loved, and was about to serve as the best man at Finnick’s wedding in early November. She would not be where she was if she’d stayed.

            She pressed the elevator button and waited. When an electronic tone sounded, Katniss stepped aboard and pressed the button for the floor below the penthouse, where the bar and lounges were located. A bearded man in a business suit boarded beside her, selecting a floor and giving her an appraising look. 

            The bar entrance stood just a few yards away when she got off, and she could see that it had the same contemporary décor as the rest of the hotel—white accented with bright colors, sharp lines, oddly shaped chairs and flowers and lighting fixtures. It would not have been a place she’d go to—she preferred the bar that connected to the antique shop she and Johanna lived above, which was littered with interesting historical detail.

            Katniss found herself stepping inside the doorway to take a closer look—the bottles all looked the same, tall and transparent, and she wondered how the bartenders told them apart. She was right about the lighting—strings of dagger like lamps hung from the ceiling, though their soft yellow light contrasted the florescent bubble chandelier in the lobby.

            Peeta was seated with his back to her, near a window. He nursed a glass of amber-colored liquid and gazed out at the skyline, and for a moment she thought of the Peeta she’d loved—he too, would’ve loved this place. Not for the atmosphere, or the service, or the drinks, but for the view and nothing else.

            Katniss crossed the room and slid into the chair across from him. Immediately, his eyes shifted towards her, but the awe never left them even though the focus of his gaze had changed completely. Something she’d thought was dead stirred inside her.

            “I’m sorry, Peeta, this is really strange,” she said. “It’s been _four years_.”  

            “Three and a half.”

            “Okay, but still,” said Katniss, setting her purse down on the table. “I can’t really wrap my head around this.”

            “But you came,” he said, and hearing his voice, so earnest and soft, made her want to cry. He seemed to sense this change in her, and he quickly added, “Don’t worry, this isn’t really about that. About _us_. I just wanted to show you something.”

            Peeta held up a finger, wordlessly asking her to wait as he dug around beneath the table. His hands found purchase in a moment, and he came up with a battered leather bag that Katniss recognized from high school. She was surprised it hadn’t fallen apart yet.

            Katniss watched as he withdrew a rectangular package wrapped in green paper. He set it in front of her.

            “Open it,” he said. “I can leave after that, if you want.”

            Katniss turned the parcel over and picked at the tape that held the paper together. She could feel Peeta’s eyes on her, could tell he had something invested in this meeting even though he said otherwise.

            Painstakingly, Katniss peeled away the wrapping. She wasn’t sure what to expect, or if it was something she should dread. She wasn’t sure what the offer meant, why it was wrapped like a gift, what Peeta had thought might happen if she showed up and he gave this to her.

            A pile of green paper sat on the polished mahogany of the table, and Katniss was holding a small canvas in her hand.

            She turned it over. Peeta’s soft and careful brush strokes, his eye for color, his intuitive and adoring view of the subject was all painfully clear. Katniss wasn’t sure if it the fact that Peeta was painting again that made so many emotions bubble up under her skin, or the fact that it was a painting of her.

            It was after she’d cut her hair, when she’d taken to wearing a bird-shaped barrette that Prim had given her to keep it out of her face. She thought maybe he’d seen her at the funeral, but no, it had to have been before that—the Katniss in the painting was not bearing grief, but focus.

            “When did you…?”

            “Last May,” he said. “You were studying in a Starbucks. I’m sorry if it seems stalkerish, but…I hadn’t seen you in a long time. The image kind of stuck.”  

            “And you painted this then?” she asked. He shook his head.

            “No. I painted that a few months ago.” Peeta had not touched his glass since she’d arrived, but now he reached to take a swig. “It was the first thing I’d painted in years, the first time I’d actually felt like painting. I want you to have it, because, well, it’s you.”

            “I was the first thing you painted.” Katniss sat back, tracing the lines of the portrait with her fingertips. “Why would I be the first thing you painted?”

            “Because, Katniss,” he said. “It’s _you_.”  

            This time, he wasn’t talking about the painting. It was all too much.

            “You said this wasn’t about us,” she said, keeping her voice steady, her face void of expression. She couldn’t let him see her warring emotions as a window of hope. A window she would have to shut again.

            “It was a white lie,” he said, his mouth tilting in the slightest smirk. “Why else would I ask you to meet me somewhere alone? If I really just wanted to give you a painting, I could’ve just asked where to send it. I could’ve just messaged you on Facebook—you’re on the suggestions list all the time, because you’re friends with my brothers.”

            “Peeta.”

            “I know. It’s scummy of me.”

            “You’re not scummy,” she said, shaking her head. “And you didn’t really trick me—I came of my own volition. But Peeta, you should hate me for what I did to you. To your family.” She choked on the words, remembering how hard it had been not only to ignore Peeta’s calls, but Cap’s voicemails and Walden’s messages—she didn’t listen to them, or read them, for fear of how much they would hate her for hurting Peeta. For fear of how they might convince her to come back.

            It was why she’d avoided them so avidly, until after the funeral, when it didn’t seem like she needed to anymore. Now, when she talked to Cap, he never mentioned Peeta except in passing. When she got a message from Walden, it was only for her birthday or Christmas or an invitation to Myra’s second baby shower at the end of the month.

            “I would never hate you. It hurt, but I would never,” he said, shaking his head. He placed his hand on the table, mere inches from hers.

            “And your dad. What kind of person cuts off a dying man?” she demanded. “And I couldn’t even give you my condolences in person. I don’t understand, Peeta.”

            “He understood, Katniss,” said Peeta. “He was the one who told you to leave.”

            Katniss recalled a distant, dingy memory. Three in the morning, Peeta sleeping fitfully just a few feet away, Katniss trying not to cry too loud so as not to wake him. She called his father, because she couldn’t think of anyone else to call.

            He picked up. He, too, had restless nights.

            She told him everything she felt—how she was afraid Peeta was slipping away from her, how he relied on her too little and lashed out at her too much. Before, he had never yelled, and now he fought with her over household chores. And then, there were moments he was just too sad for her to even comprehend going to work, or going to college in the fall. She didn’t want to extend her gap year, but Peeta made her feel like she should.

            “You can’t grow for him,” Mr. Mellark had said. “You can’t put your life on hold, and I don’t think Peeta should expect you to. He has too much to learn that you can’t teach him—I thought maybe you could learn together, but maybe he’s not ready.”  
            “Not ready for what?” she had asked.

            “I am of the belief that marriage is no walk in the park—it’s like roller skating. And in order to roller skate, you have to know how to walk on your own, how to stand on your own two feet,” he said carefully. “And Peeta is not standing on his feet very well. Do with that information what you will.”

            After that night, Katniss had stayed with Peeta for another month. She tried to tell him, she tried to let her feelings be known, but it had only seemed to get worse. When he wasn’t painting anymore, she asked him to get help.

            He didn’t listen. Painting had been a phase, he said, a childish dream. Unrealistic, unprofitable. There was nothing he could paint that would get him good money, so he might as well work at the bakery where there was real job security.

            _I don’t know if you’re the person I love anymore._

            It hurt to remember, hurt to hear herself say such a thing—she phrased it all wrong, but still it rang true. She didn’t know if the Peeta she was looking at then was the same Peeta she had met for milkshakes at Sae’s, who had chased her nightmares away and showed her that love didn’t have to hurt. She didn’t know if she recognized him, and that was why she had slipped off her ring, why she had packed up her things and left, why she had done everything she could to stay away.

            “He didn’t tell me to leave you,” said Katniss, in the present. “I made that choice.”  
            “But it wasn’t because you didn’t love me.”

            “No, it wasn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry that it sounded like that.”

             “I’m sorry, too.”

            Katniss watched a tear hit the table. Peeta’s hand brushed gently against hers.

            She cried harder. He stood up, and she thought he was leaving—he’d said his piece, given her his painting, and now there was closure. It had taken four years to be really over, and now it was.

            But he just rounded the table, his chair screeching loudly as he dragged it closer to her, settling down at her side and opening his arms for her to lean into. And, despite the logic that told her she shouldn’t, Katniss let herself cry into his shirt.

            “You’re wearing a tie,” she said, her hand idly tracing the edge of it. It was patterned with tiny yellow stars.

            “Yeah. I wasn’t kidding about the meeting.”

            She laughed, despite herself, and clung to his hand. Peeta pressed his face to the top of her head, and she heard a faint sniffle. Pulling away, she saw that his face was streaked with tears too—he had always been a crier, so she wasn’t surprised. It was so like him to offer comfort, even though everything hurt. It was so like him to admit to loving her anyway; loving her still.

            “Katniss,” he whispered. His hand came up to brush a lock of hair out of her face, and Katniss panicked—if he kissed her, she knew she wouldn’t have the willpower to push him away.

            “What?”

            “Let me take you home.”


	4. if I was an island

The taxi peeled off into slow-moving New York traffic, leaving Katniss and Peeta standing at the curb. They stood a foot apart, as if they were afraid of what would happen if they brushed up against each other. Katniss fumbled with her keys, unlocking the door that was squeezed between the antique shop and the Greek restaurant next door. When she had pulled it open, a hand over her head caught the edge and held it for her.

            Peeta didn’t care about being too close. If Katniss were to lean backwards just a little, her body would be pressed against his chest. She remembered standing like that, Peeta’s body wrapped around her and his chin resting on the top of her head, or his face burrowing into the crook of her neck and breathing in the smell of her favorite perfume, which she had used liberally then but conservatively now.

            This close, she was sure Peeta could smell that she’d used it today.

            “Peeta…”

            “I guess you want me to go.”

            “Your cab pulled away, Peeta. Why didn’t you stay inside?”

            His face was lit by the blue and white of the restaurant’s glowing sign, his expression shifting—she thought maybe he was hoping he wouldn’t need the taxi, but she saw genuine bewilderment in his eyes. It had only just occurred to him that now he would need to catch another ride.

            “Shit,” he whispered.

            “You can walk me to the door,” she offered. “If that justifies it at all.”

            He smiled, but it was a fragile kind of smile. Katniss turned away, heading up the stairs to her apartment. She heard the outer door close behind her, but didn’t look back at Peeta as they made their way upstairs.

            She and Johanna shared the hallway with the apartment over the Greek restaurant, the door to which was standing open. Her neighbor, Darius, was playing a melody on his piano. He always played this time of night, now that he only worked a desk job at the police department—this way, when his husband came home, he was greeted by his favorite music instead of worry over whether Darius was safe.

            “Evening, Katniss,” he crooned, shooting a grin in her direction.

            “Evening,” she replied, stopping at her door and waiting for Peeta to clear the final step. “Darius, this is Peeta. He’s…an old classmate.”

            “Hello, Peeta,” Darius smiled. “Hope you don’t mind the music.”

            “No, sir. It’s lovely,” said Peeta, sweetly and genuinely.

            Katniss smiled and turned her key in the lock, pushing into the apartment and tossing her purse onto the little table they kept by the door. Peeta stood just beyond the threshold, hesitant.

            Clove, the terrible cat, stepped out of Johanna’s bedroom and glared. Katniss walked towards her, kicking out with one foot. When she scampered back into the dark, Katniss shut the door and threw the deadbolt they’d had installed for this very purpose.

            “She can open doors,” said Katniss by way of explanation, walking back to Peeta and kicking off her shoes by the door.

            “Because she’s possessed, right?” Peeta tucked his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. The bag that clung to his shoulder slipped, so he withdrew a hand to right it again. “So. It was nice to see you again.”

            “Peeta, wait.”

            “I know. You can’t,” he said, softly, so Katniss’s giddy neighbor wouldn’t hear. “I’m on my feet. I just wanted you to know, because you cared. Even though you left, you cared.”

            “Peeta, this isn’t a conversation for the hallway,” she said. “Come in for a minute. Please.”

            “I _can’t_. I’ll only ask...” he trailed off. “I’ll only get hurt. I have the sense to go right now, so I’m going to go.” 

            “No.”

            Katniss was getting tired of this game. They were dodging each other, skirting around what they wanted to say. She had crawled into his arms in the hotel bar and he had paid for the cab that brought her home—there was no denying that their long separation had come to an end, and all the walls that came with it were tumbling down. This was not something she was going to ignore.

            “Peeta Mellark, you’re not going anywhere. You opened this can of worms when you asked me to meet you at the bar,” she said, daring to reach out and pull him roughly into her apartment by the sleeve. She shut the door tightly behind him and pointed at him in an accusatory way. “You don’t get to just drop me off at home, leaving me scot-free. Hold me accountable. Yell at me. Tell me you love me. Whatever you want to say, get it off your chest, _for fuck’s sake_.”

            “Fine,” he said, his tone clipped. He grabbed her extended hand and lowered it back to her side. “You were never very patient, were you? Couldn’t have waited until I figured it out myself?”

            “You weren’t going to! You were treating me like shit,” she said. “You were treating _yourself_ like shit. And you didn’t even _care_.”

            “And you got to decide the consequences. You looked at me and thought I wasn’t going to change, assumed I wouldn’t fix it for you,” he pulled away from her and started pacing around her living room, gesturing with his hands as he talked. His bag was proving cumbersome, so he unloaded it into the armchair closest to him. “You just said you didn’t love me—I know that’s not what you meant, but that’s what it sounded like.”

            “I didn’t want you to fix it for _me_ ,” she felt her pitch and volume increasing. She tried to stamp it down, but failed. “You had to fix it for you. Did he tell you the roller skating analogy, Peeta? It makes sense.”

            “You can’t roller skate until you can walk. I fucking know, he preached that shit to me my whole life,” said Peeta sharply. “But we could’ve had a conversation.”

            “We really couldn’t have. I tried, Peeta, but we hadn’t spoken in days. Except for _goodnight_ and _how was your day_ and _I love you_ ,” she argued, shaking her head at him. “It wasn’t real.”

            “I don’t remember it like that.”

            “Of course not,” she said, storming past him and falling into the spot on the couch that was farthest from Peeta. She sat there and stewed for a moment, and he stood with one hand on his hip and the other tangled in the curls at the top of his head.

            Then, he sat down beside her.

            “I should’ve listened to you,” he told her, his shoulders sinking in resignation. The anger she’d stirred up was short-lived, and it drained out of him quickly. He could never stay mad for long. “I should’ve let you help me.”

            “I know.”

            “But you shouldn’t have left the way you did. You didn’t have to…four years without contact, Kat. That’s a long time,” he said. “I know why. I know at first, it’s hard to…but you could’ve talked to me again after you’d let go completely. After it boiled over.”

            “It’s not that simple. I couldn’t just...pop up in your life again,” she said. “And it wasn’t just about me being able to let go. It was for you, too.”

            He shrugged, conceding.       

            “Are you happy?” he asked. She nodded slowly. “When did you decide to be a teacher? It used to be botany, or biology, or foresting. You changed your dream.”

            “I interned at the museum after my freshman year, helped with their educational programs,” she said. “I changed my major to science education right after that. I really am happy doing what I do, living here. Everything feels right.”

            “When I saw you, you seemed happy then, too. You were with a guy, red hair…”

            “Finnick,” she said, nodding. Peeta examined her expression closely, and something in him seemed to shrink.

            “He makes you happy?”

            “No! I mean, yes, I love him a lot and he’s one of my favorite people in the world,” she began to ramble. “But not like you’re thinking—Finnick is my best friend. We’ve always been just friends, really good friends. He’s marrying the love of his life next month and I’m the best man, best woman, whatever. I’ve only really dated casually since, well, you know.”

            “Oh,” he said. “Me too.”

            She pulled her legs up and tucked them beneath her—if not for the way her skirt fit, she would’ve drawn them up to her chest and hugged her knees. Peeta leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped together. It was familiar, sitting like this. Katniss thought back to the days of watching movie’s on his couch, before they were anything more than friends, and remembered those days fondly.

            She voiced this. Peeta looked over and smiled gently as she reminisced.

            “Is that what you want? To be friends again?” he asked.

            Katniss didn’t know how to answer that. No, it wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t really _know_ what she wanted. With the doors of the past starting to drift close, there were new ones opening…Katniss wasn’t sure which to go through. She thought about everything that had been laid out on the table that night, and everything that had been missed.

            “No,” she said carefully. “I don’t think that’s what I want.”

            She didn’t wait for Peeta to think she wanted to cut him off again, that she wanted to keep going on as they had been for the past few years. Instead, she crawled across her couch cushions, turned his head toward her with a hand on his cheek, and looked him deeply in the eye until he understood.

            A tear dripped onto her hand.

            Peeta dove forward, his arms enveloping her entire frame and pulling her as close to him as he could. She began to press kisses wherever she could reach. His forehead, tear-streaked cheeks, the corner of his mouth—at this, he turned his head and sought out her mouth. Katniss slid her hands into his hair. It was short on the sides now, but it was soft as she pushed her fingers through it and up into the long curls that amassed at the top of his head.

            Between the kisses that tasted of salt and felt like resurrection, Peeta was saying her name. “I love you,” he said. “ _I love you_.” 

            She remembered this. She remembered it so well.

            The way he laughed when she found his ticklish spots, his eyes and nose crinkling in such a joyous way that it filled Katniss with joy, too. Winter mornings, when she woke up early and left him swaddled in soft pajamas and piles of blankets, only to come back moments later because she missed lying next to him. The tiny grunt of frustration when she plucked his reading glasses off of his face and placed them on the top of her head, saying, _You hardly wear them anyway_.

            But she loved when he wore them.

            “Peeta,” she said, drawing back from his kiss. He opened his eyes, blinking at her in a puzzled way. She framed his face with her hands again, her thumbs brushing over the soft, clean-shaven skin. “Peeta, I still love you.”

            His sigh of relief was followed closely by a grin that spread all across his face, lighting him up brighter than Times Square. She felt she must be grinning too, through her tears.

            It wasn’t all going to fall into place again, not after four years. Surely there would be ups and downs, bumps in the road to get over, old and new issues coming up to test them. But they were older and wiser now, and both were standing on their own two feet—no one was going to topple over if the other leaned on them.

            Katniss kissed Peeta with renewed hunger, re-familiarizing herself with the softness of his lips. He matched her enthusiasm, one hand catching the end of her braid and carefully twisting the elastic free. He pulled away to set it on the coffee table, and then watched her face lovingly as he ran his fingers through her hair to undo the plait that fell down her back.

            Hands in her loose waves, Peeta brought their mouths together again. He leaned forward, easing her down to the couch cushions, letting go of her hair only so that he could hold his body up over hers.

            “I forgot what I was missing,” he said. Peeta let a hand roam down her body, gracing the slight curve of her hip where it strained against the fabric of her skirt. Katniss clutched at the sides of his shirt, tugging where it was tucked into his waistband. “What are you doing?”

            His smile was coy, his eyes were electric. She pulled him down for a searing kiss, one hand trapped between them as she undid the knot of his tie.  Peeta groaned softly into her mouth as Katniss pulled the necktie free, but before she could toss it aside so thoughtlessly, he reached for it.

            “You have a roommate,” he reminded her. “We’re not leaving clothes all over the place for her to find.”

            “Well, maybe we shouldn’t be in the living room, then.”

            Tie in hand, Peeta got to his feet and offered a hand to her. He pulled her up and, before she was even standing upright, pulled her into a kiss.  Katniss clung to his shoulders, weak in the knees—she felt like there was only enough strength in her to propel their entwined bodies towards the hallway. Peeta figured it out the rest of the way, backing into the door just beyond Johanna’s room, inside which Clove was now scratching and hissing and causing a racket. 

            “How do you live with that thing?” Peeta asked breathlessly, his hand groping behind him for her doorknob. Katniss didn’t have an answer for him, and she didn’t end up needing one, because soon the door was falling away and they were stumbling into her bedroom.

            When Katniss pulled away to close the door behind them, Peeta looked around the room, taking in the strings of Christmas lights Katniss had strung up along the walls, the colorful mess of pillows and bedding, the makeshift nightstand made from packing crates and the tree shaped lamp she had taken from their apartment when she’d left.

            How strange it was to see him there, standing in the middle of her room with hundreds of tiny lights reflecting in his eyes. Here was the home she’d made without him, and it had been complete and good and warm before he had ever stepped inside. But he did not seem out of place in it, either.


	5. pull me closer

Peeta, his shirt untucked and rumpled, sat precariously on the end of her bed. Katniss walked over to her dresser, feeling his eyes on her back as she unfastened the necklace she wore and returned it to its place in her small, kitschy jewelry box.

After thinking about it for a moment, Katniss stepped on the toes of her stockings and started tugging them down her legs.

“Katniss…” said Peeta, cutting himself off with a desperate, choked noise.

"Yeah?” She turned to see he had unbuttoned his shirt halfway, but was now frozen, watching her.

“Come here,” he breathed, holding his hands out to her. She went to him, letting him take her hands and pull her in so that she stood between his legs. She leaned over to kiss him, cradling his head again as his fingers fiddled with the zipper at the back of her skirt.

She reached behind her to pull it down herself. He took this as a cue to push the skirt carefully down her hips and to the ground, helping her keep her balance as she stepped out of it and kicked it aside. Katniss then set to unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way, pushing it off his shoulders. The plain white t-shirt he wore underneath was quickly up and over his head, a wad of fabric sliding off the side of the bed, forgotten.

“You’re still wearing your shoes,” she whispered, nudging the side of his loafer with her bare foot.

“Did you want me to leave them by the door?”

"No, just take them off,” she said, stepping just out of reach so he had room to bend over and pull the shoes and socks off of his feet. Once he had, he dropped them on the floor and extended his eager hands toward her again. Peeta’s hands wrapped around the backs of her thighs, hooded eyes watching her palms slide slowly down from his shoulders to the warm skin of his bare chest. She reached his ribcage, frowning when her fingertips brushed against a dark spot that had not been there before. “What’s this?”

He lifted his arm, and Katniss turned her head to see the tattoo on his side—the slender, life-sized likeness of a paintbrush.

“A reminder,” he said.

Katniss didn’t say anything—she just gently pushed him down to lay on the bed, so she could lean over him and leave a trail of kisses along the tattoo.

“I guess that means you like it,” he said, chuckling. She hummed her agreement, lifting her head to kiss his shoulder and up the side of his neck. Peeta gasped a little at this. “Wait. Let me move…this isn’t comfortable, Katniss.”

She stood up, allowing him to scoot further up the bed so that his legs were not hanging off the end. As soon as his head hit her pillows, Katniss scrambled to join him. She hesitated at his side, unsure if it would be too soon to climb on top of him—Peeta grew impatient, sitting up and pulling her into his lap, claiming her lips with a kiss that was less softness, more want and need.

Straddling his hips, Katniss felt his arousal pressing insistently against her. She wrapped her arms around Peeta’s neck and, when their mouths parted, buried her face in his neck to suck gently at the flesh there. His hand tangled in her hair, his hips jerking up into hers as she left a string of small, quickly fading red marks on his skin.

Peeta’s hands slid up her blouse, pushing the fabric further up her body until it reached her arms. Katniss groaned and untangled herself from him for just a moment, dragging the shirt over her head and throwing it aside.

Before she could lean back in, Peeta stopped her. She was still positioned on his lap, but her torso was some distance from his, just enough that he could get a good look at her breasts as they rose and fell with her breaths. His hands came up to trace the lines of her bra, particularly the band around the bottom where it pinched and squeezed and left red lines in her skin. Deft fingers undid the clasp behind her, pulling the garment forward and depositing it between them. Though his eyes were dark with lust, he was reverent as he gently rubbed his thumbs against the markings—fewer than he’d ever seen, because she’d learned how to buy a better-fitting bra.

“Peeta,” she sighed his name as he cupped one hand over her, and with his eyes flicking up to her face, softly kneaded her small breast. She arched closer to him, a position he quickly figured out how to take advantage of, ducking his head and peppering her cleavage with kisses, paying special attention to her nipples. Between this and the delicious friction of their hips, which rolled and rocked together against the bedsheets, Katniss was losing herself in sensation.

The sounds, too, drove her crazy. His soft moans against her skin. Her gasps when one of them thrust just so, stimulating her clit through her underwear. Together, their panting breaths, names riding on exhalations, their trembling voices saying _yes_ , asking for _more_ , whispering _I love you._

When Peeta shifted, he lay her down on the bed and drew back. His hands were a flurry of motion over his belt and the front of his slacks, swiftly undoing buckle, button, and zipper. Peeta then pushed them down his hips and thighs before crawling back over to her, kicking his pants off the rest of the way as he went.

Katniss bowed her legs and he settled between them, kissing a path up her torso and neck before bringing his mouth to hers again. His hands were on either side of her head, one brushing her hair back from her face and the other twisted in her covers, holding his body over hers.

She slid her hands into the back of his boxer briefs and squeezed his ass, and Peeta’s eyes shot open in surprise as he kissed her. Then he happily closed them again as he stroked the inside of her thigh, a ghost of a touch that had her quivering. He moved down her body to kiss the same spot, then closer, then closer still to her warmth.

“Wait, wait,” she whispered, tugging on his hair. Peeta lifted his head, the fingers of one hand toying with the elastic at her hip. “Come here.”

She opened her arms to him, kissing him when his face hovered close to hers.

“What’s up?” he asked, and she laughed at the incongruity of the question. He laughed, too, and it was everything.  

“I need to make it clear…I’m not hooking up with you,” she said. Peeta drew back, his brow wrinkling. His smile fell from his face. She hurried to continue, her hands latching onto his arms as she reassured him. “I mean it’s not _just_ sex. It’s _you_. I want to be with you.”

“Oh,” he said. He kissed the tip of her nose. “That’s good.”

"I also stopped you because, um, I need to go get condoms,” she added. “I don’t keep any in here, but my roommate has a stash.”

Peeta smiled lazily, his head falling back against the pillows as she untangled herself from him. She found his shirt on floor near the end of the bed and slid her arms into it, buttoning it partially before heading for the door.

“Good luck foraging, my love,” Peeta called after her.

She crossed the hallway and slipped into the bathroom, rummaging through the under-the-sink cabinet until she found the incredibly organized plastic box full of condoms and lubricant that Johanna kept there. She looked over the varieties, found something akin to what they’d used in the past, and took a whole strip in the spirit of wishful thinking.

When Katniss came back, he was in exactly the same place. She padded over and showed off her findings.

"This could last us a week, are you planning on barricading us in?” he asked, taking the condoms from her and setting them on the bed beside him. She shook her head.

“Hush, you,” she said, slipping the shirt of her shoulders. While she was still up, she thought to wiggle out of her underwear as well, dropping them to the floor and climbing naked onto the bed beside Peeta. He just gazed at her for a moment, like she was the moon and he hadn’t seen the night sky for years.

The silent moment ended swiftly, and his hands were everywhere. He kissed her face and her neck and returned his touch to the territory he’d been treading before she’d stopped him. Once again, she melted in his hands. Tracing lovely circles on her clit, Peeta leaned over her, watching her face as he brought her nearer to the edge.

The fingers of his other hand slid through her wetness, teasing. Katniss bucked her hips against his hand and Peeta obliged, inserting two fingers into her and pumping them slowly in and out.

“Are you gonna come this way?” he asked, his voice low.

She nodded, unable to answer with words. Peeta sped up, just barely, and leaned down to kiss her softly. When she gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulders, he withdrew one hand to hold down her hips, but his fingers kept sliding in and out of her even as she clenched tightly around them.

Katniss’s wild heartbeat was beginning to slow as Peeta pulled away, rolling off of her and reaching for the strip of condoms. She watched him take one and leave the rest on her nightstand, and before her foggy brain could make sense of it, he was stripping off his underwear and tossing them off the side of the bed.

“Hey,” she said, weakly extending her arm out to him. He took her hand, pressing it to his lips.

“Hi,” he whispered, moving closer to her. He dropped her hand so he could brush her hair out of her face. “You look beautiful.”

“So do you.” She shifted her body towards his so they were lying just a breath away from each other now. The hand that was not framing his face snaked down his side to brush against his tattoo, and then she found the ticklish spot at the front of his hip.  

He wiggled away, but his eyes were crinkling with silent laughter. He was so beautiful that Katniss could physically feel it in her chest. It bubbled up inside her, bringing a grin but also prickling her eyes with tears.

“Stay here tonight,” she said, as he rolled back to her side. “Stay with me.”

“I was already planning on it.”

She took the condom from his hand and tore the package open, pulling away from his kiss so she could see what she was doing. He groaned, watching as she pinched the tip and rolled it over his erection. When the condom was in place, Katniss tapped his chin, and Peeta lifted his head back up to look at her.

She kissed him briefly, shifting her body so that she could guide him between her legs. Peeta’s fingers dug into the flesh of her hips as she guided him to her entrance. He filled her slowly, sighing her name reverently, in a way that sent a pleasant shiver up her spine.

He drew back and pushed back in again, and Katniss relished in every second. His hand traced a path up between the valley of her breasts, pausing to ghost his thumb over her sensitive flesh. She rolled her hips against his, and Peeta groaned softly, squeezing his eyes shut. His hand left her cheek to reach beyond her, dragging a pillow down the bed. He slipped out of her in the process, and Katniss let out a disappointed huff.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You’ll see. Tilt your hips…yes, like that,” he whispered, wedging the pillow beneath her to keep her hips lifted off the bed just so. He leaned back over her, kissing her hotly as he reentered her at a new angle. She quickly grew to like it when he was completely sheathed inside her—with his hips flush against hers his pubic bone was perfectly aligned with her clit.

He rocked into her, his body pressed close against hers. She met each slow, indulgent thrust, tangling her fingers in his hair. Tiny gasps fell from his lips, and Katniss wanted to bottle each varied sound and keep them in the back of a drawer forever.

“Katniss,” his voice was soft and shaky in her ear, “you feel incredible.”

She moaned softly into the curve of his neck, returning the sentiment. As they rocked against each other, pressure built slowly, the heat inside her sparking and blazing but not burning her senses away. The sensations were intense, but the drawn-out pace allowed her to relish in them in a way that didn’t translate into rougher, faster sex.

When she came, she threaded her fingers through Peeta’s hair and kissed his face, watching as he unraveled while she pulsed around him.

After another quick trip to the bathroom, Katniss curled around Peeta’s body as he lay there, coming down from the high of being with Katniss for the first time in years. “I love you,” she heard him mutter when she kissed his shoulder, shortly before he dozed off.

She fell asleep pressed up against his back, awash in the warmth, the scent, the love that radiated from him. And she swore she slept better than she had in years.

The next morning, when Peeta woke her up with soft kisses so he could ask what she wanted for breakfast, Katniss wondered if they were always meant to come back to one another.

She didn’t even mind the rude intrusion that followed not five minutes later, when Johanna threw open her bedroom door demanding to know why there was such an ugly briefcase in their living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the final update for this story. Thank you for reading.   
> I never really explained that my inspiration for this was in the song Closer by The Chainsmokers and Halsey, which is why some of the events are the way they are. This was mostly supposed to be a self-indulgent thing because I couldn't get the thought out of my head but it turned out way longer and ended up with more messy feelings than originally intended. But now I fully intend for it to be messy because relationships are messy.   
> There is a lot of stuff in between the lines, too--it has been a long time, and both characters have done things and felt things that aren't necessarily "on-screen". Though the events in this story are just little glimpses into their lives over the course of years, I've tried to make it clear that they grew and changed separately, but that they still have love between them. And there's still guilt, and old tensions are going to come back up again, but this story was about their separation and reunion--not the actual complicated task of getting back together.


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